Dream a little dream of me
by Tirielle
Summary: Sai is destined, maybe, probably, to be a strange one... (A short chronicle of the beginnings of Fujiwara no Sai)


T_h_e_ _e_n_d

And before he knows it, he is asleep.

x

T_h_e_ _b_e_g_i_n_n_i_n_g

Sai is destined, maybe, probably, to be a strange one. Special. He is the seventh son of a seventh son, of a line that goes back seven generations but is undiscovered due to a long family tradition of drowning bastard children.

The Fujiwara family has always been small, but honourable.

He grows up not in the court, but in the country, surrounded by maids who smile hesitantly at him but avoid his father. He avoids his father too, because he's never seen him smile, and that scares him a little.

He never questions why his father scares his mother too.

Sai is raised surrounded by women, who encourage his curiosity and gentleness and enthusiasm. He is quiet and kind and trusting, and he loves to tell his mother about his dreams.

_It's strange, _he tells his mother, _but sometimes the things I dream come true._

She smiles gently behind him in the mirror, brushing the tangles from his long dark hair.

_What have you dreamed, then?_ She asks.

_I dreamed that the gates of the sky broke open, and water poured across the world and left the seas behind._

She glances out the window at distant fields, which promise to flood unless the dams are reinforced. _Maybe you just dreamed of the rain,_ she tells him.

He looks at her, eyes pleading and stubborn. _I dreamed of a man surrounded by darkness and hope, and a week later, that doctor arrived._

_Maybe you overheard someone talking about him,_ she says.

_Nobody knew he was coming, _he frowns._ You don't believe me, do you?_

The brush runs smoothly through his hair now, but neither of them admit it's time to stop.

She smiles fondly at him, sure that she knows what he wants her to ask. _What did you dream about last night, Sai?_

He looks at the eyes of her reflection, so bright and warm and loving, and the eyes from his dream. They were blank, dull and empty, and they terrified him more than anything else he'd ever dreamed. Because they were still his mother's eyes.

_I didn't dream anything last night, mother._

On his seventh birthday, his mother dies.

x

I_n_ _t_r_a_n_s_i_t

_I'm sending you to court,_ his father tells him. _There are those who I have told about your dreams, and they would like to meet you._

Sai says nothing, but his eyes ask, _Why?_

_Do you know the game of Go, son? No, I doubt the women have taught you. This is the joban, the fuseki. The opening move. After this, it is up to you._

x

T_h_e_ _m_i_d_d_l_e

Life in court is different. It is faster, brighter, sharper. Every single action means something, every look or gesture a move in the hidden game of power.

Sai knows this but at the same time does not understand it, not completely. He is his father's chess piece, a pawn, small and innocent and dreaming of greater things.

A wonderchild, some call him. A fraud, some claim. A demon, a spirit, a ghost, a god…

He keeps himself away from the politics of the adults. Or perhaps his maid—a cousin of a branch family—keeps them away from him. She is sweet and mostly understanding of the fact that she'll never understand him, and she records his dreams religiously in a small black book.

_But some of my dreams don't mean anything,_ he protests. He flips back to a dream of a dragon and a great golden lion chasing each other across a go board, the universe spinning above them in endless constellations. _I don't even know how to play go._

_Everything means something, _she tells him. _And perhaps you should learn._

x

S_t_u_d_e_n_t

At least once a week, someone visits him to ask about his dreams. It is not always the same person, and it's not always a noble, either. Sometimes, he recognizes them, even if he's never seen them before, and he gives them the dreams he knows they are meant to have.

It is from his visitors that he learns to play go.

A patient farmer, who travels for days to visit the capital, explains to him the basics. Sai gives him a dream of failing crops tended to by beautiful, joyous children, and wishes him luck and happiness.

_Sai dreams of a child, innocent and curious, brushing the dust off a board, playing games alone while listening to someone only he can hear, grown to a man, happy, content, in love, dying, sick, bent over a board coughing redredred blood…_

A seamstress, selling dazzling clothing to the nobles of the court, shows him how to read the board. How every move leads to every other move, how endless possibilities exist but only one was best. Sai gives her a dream of romances with beautiful men but love with a humble, ugly sailor.

_Everything is distorted, painfully bright and achingly heavy, rays of light reaching down but dancing out of reach, and the dream darkens and the light disappears and the weight on his chest pushes harder until he can't breathe…_

And a nobleman, smitten with his maid-who-is-like-a-mother, simply plays games with him. Sai has never given him a dream, but the man spends time with him anyways, seeing Sai as a person and not a vessel for wisdom and prophecies.

_He sits across from a child in strange clothing, his heart bubbling with words but his face stoic and silent, this is more important than words, and he points his fan imperiously at a go board in an endless dark void…_

These days, Sai simply dreams of go.

x

T_e_a_c_h_e_r

He meets the emperor again, not as the novelty of a prophetic child, but as a prodigy in the game of go. He is older now, officially an adult, and his strange dreams have faded with his childlike innocence.

That is to say, not very much.

Go is beautiful, he knows, and he wishes that others could see what he sees. This is what he tells the emperor, and perhaps his wish is coming true, because he is appointed the official imperial tutor in the board game of go.

He is happy, because what the emperor does, everyone does, and suddenly he's in demand for his own skills, like with the nobleman who eloped with his maid when he was old enough to fend for himself, and there are so many, many, many games to play. He throws himself at them all with the same enthusiasm, memorizing them all to keep with him for the rest of his life.

He would die, he thinks, for this happiness.

He whispers this one day to his rival, his equal, the one he thinks will understand, and misses the gleam in the man's eyes. _Dying is easy,_ his rival muses to him. _Like falling asleep, only never waking up._

x

I_n_ _f_l_i_g_h_t

In his disgrace, he runs.

He doesn't know where he's going or what he's doing, but he knows he can't stay here, in this place where he's been accused of going against everything he values.

He can't believe they think he cheated, but he can't believe that someone cheated him, in the game he holds sacred, and everything feels like it will come crashing down around him in moments.

Perhaps it already has.

He stops before a river, clear and cold and violent, and that violence appeals to him in this moment so very, very much. He sinks under the water and looks up at the sky to say goodbye, and is suddenly struck by how familiar it looks.

_Oh._ He thinks to himself._ I know this dream._

And he tells him that the weight of the water is not so heavy at all, and welcomes the darkness.

x

T_h_e_ _e_n_d

And before he knows it, he is asleep.

x

x

x

(And because Sai has always been special then maybe, one day, he will wake up.)


End file.
